-------- Original Message --------
I'll start by pointing out what to me is the first disadvantage of
"azure":
it's part of self-consciously elevated, exotic, pre-20th-century poetic
diction. Far from being one of Madox Ford's "fresh, usual words", it
smells musty to me. This may be what Charles meant by "poetastic".
And the second is that, before reading the rest of the poem, it looks
very much like Shade picked a two-syllable word just to pad out the
line, when either "blue" or "sky" would have done as well. This may
be what James Marcus meant by "flabbiness".
Of Brian Boyd's reasons for saying "azure" /is/ better than
the alternatives, I'll save the one I find most convincing for last.
The reminiscence at the entrance of the Hawaiian bar: certainly
all three of the elements of the opening image are repeated in
Hazel's death scene, as I hadn't quite realized till now--cedar
(waxwing, as Brian Boyd pointed out), windows, and azure. (Is
this what Pekka Tammi was saying?) But if Shade had found a way
to use "blue" or "sky" in his second line, I think "sky-blue entrance"
would have been just as /juste/.
"Asia"--to my astonishment that pronunciation is also in the
NSOED. I've never heard it, and I find it very hard to see
anything beyond meretricious Orientalism in the connection.
This is also true of the etymological connection to Asia,
which seems to be more important to me than to others.
(Not only is it from the Persian word for lapis lazuli, but
lapis lazuli is found only in Afghanistan. This also reminds
of Yeats's poem "Lapis Lazuli", with its Chinese figures, and
of yet another bird, the lazuli bunting, which Nabokov might
well have known from his Western trips.) I enjoyed reading
Wilbur's poem--thanks!--and note that it has less conspicuous
mot-justice than most of the poems of his I've read, and in
particular he wisely refers to the color of the sky as "blue".
(My prediction for the American poet of the late-'20s
generation who will be read in 100 years is James Wright.
That is, a few of his poems will be read, starting with "Speak".)
I had forgotten about the connection with Mallarme's /azur/. This
does seem to me like a good reason, but I think the connotations
of distance, a higher world, heaven are there without the allusion. (I
wonder how hard Nabokov thought before rejecting "false heaven".)
So I'm still not sure the word is worth its precious price.
One word in defense of "Pale Fire", though. You can ask that
a short lyric have no extra word or syllable, like some of Frost's
"top-drawer" poems, or James Wright's "Speak". But you can't
ask that of a 999-line poem in rhyme and meter. No one has
accomplished it.
Note to Jansy: if our Russian speakers tell us the etymology of
/lazur'/, I'll bet the /l/ is not from Persian but the French
definite article.
If I haven't exhausted your patience with on-topic comments,
I'll turn briefly to facts about interference colors that may be new to
some. Not only is there no blue pigment in /Morpho/'s wings, as
Carolyn mentioned, but there is none in any bird's feather either.
The colors of jays, bluebirds, the European Kingfisher, result
from light interference in special feather structures that superimpose
the red (etc.) light waves in such a way that reflections interfere with
each other, leaving only blue. For that matter, only a few birds (the
turacos, confined to Africa) have green feather pigments. Other
green feathers, such as a parrot's, have yellow pigment and a
structure that creates a blue interference color.
Jerry Friedman